The Pirate Bay is now the largest video streaming site in the world

Netflix has a lot of streaming content, but so do services like Hulu and HBO. The Pirate Bay has put them all to shame now with the combination of in-browser streaming technology combined with its usual disregard for copyright. TPB is the first major torrent tracker to support a new streaming plugin called Torrents-Time. After downloading, users can stream any video listed on the site.

Torrents-Time is a separate project that is not directly affiliated with TPB. It has been integrated with a few smaller sites, and there’s a dedicated website for the service. It’s also (partially) open source and available on GitHub. The Pirate Bay has Torrents-Time links right next to the download link, labeled “Stream It! (Beta).” The installer for Torrents-Time will be served up automatically by the player popup if you don’t already have it installed. I think we’ve all been trained to feel apprehensive about installing an EXE like this, but there’s no direct evidence Torrents-Time is up to no good. Well, not that kind of no good. Use your best judgement.

Once it’s installed, the in-browser Torrents-Time player should begin streaming the video. The creators like to say it works immediately, but it actually takes a minute or two to buffer. Torrents-Time is actually running a torrent client in the browser along with a video player using FFmpeg. It’s basically prioritizing the sections of data toward the beginning of the video and encoding it on the fly. The player also has support for playing to Google Cast devices and AirPlay.

Because this is still running as a torrent behind the scenes, your IP address will be visible in the swarm. Torrents-Time warns you about this and conveniently enough, will sell you a VPN on a daily or monthly basis. I suppose this is the business model. If they make torrents feel more like regular streaming videos, Torrents-Time might do quite well at selling VPN subscriptions too.